In 1926, researchers in Marianna, Arkansas, worked their test fields with mule teams. This fall, that same station is celebrating its 100th birthday. The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture reports that the Lon Mann Cotton Research Station began as the Cotton Branch Station on 160 acres and now covers about 655 acres in the Delta near Crowley's Ridge.
The numbers are fun to share with kids. The station supports more than 10,000 research plots every year. Its soil lab can process up to 200,000 samples a year and has analyzed more than 5.8 million since 1954. It also helped introduce Arksoy, an early soybean variety that grew into one of Arkansas's most valuable crops.
What does a research plot actually do? It answers one question fairly: change one thing, keep everything else the same, and measure what happens. That's a lesson your homeschool can run on a windowsill this week.
What your kids will learn
Grades K–5
- What soil is, and how potting mix, coconut coir and yard dirt look and feel different
- What makes a test "fair" (changing only one thing)
- How to watch and compare seeds sprouting in different pots
- How to record results with drawings and simple charts
Grades 6–12
- How growing media differ in structure, moisture retention and aeration
- Independent, dependent and controlled variables
- Measuring germination speed, plant height and root development
- Graphing data and writing evidence-based conclusions, the same way agricultural scientists report results
This week's activity: Backyard Research Plots
You'll need a few clear cups, some yard soil, any bagged potting mix you have, a little sand if you can find it, and a handful of dried beans from the pantry.
- Do a jar test first. Put a scoop of yard soil in a clear jar, fill it most of the way with water, cap it tightly and shake for a minute. Let it sit overnight. Sand settles first, then silt, then clay on top. Kids can sketch the layers and guess which kind of soil your yard has most of.
- Set up your plots. Fill three cups: one with yard soil, one with potting mix, one with sand. An adult pokes a few drainage holes in each cup with scissors or a skewer.
- Write a hypothesis. "I think the beans in ______ will sprout first because ______."
- Keep everything else the same. Plant the same number of beans, at the same depth, in each cup. Give each cup the same amount of water and set them side by side in the same window.
- Observe daily. Record the day each bean breaks the surface, then measure the height of the tallest sprout every day with a ruler.
- Graph and conclude. Younger kids can draw a picture chart. Older kids can make a line graph and explain which variable they changed, which they measured and which they controlled.
Make it a complete lab with one box. Our Soil Science Experiment Kit (4 Pots) includes four 3-inch peat pots, traditional potting mix, expandable coconut coir pellets and two seed varieties chosen for fast germination, so sprouting typically begins in 3–7 days. Kids plant the same seeds in different growing media, and different seeds in the same medium, then track the results. Pick K–5 or 6–12 at checkout, and you'll get five lessons plus an experiment planning sheet, a side-by-side growth tracking chart, and a reflection page (K–5) or a lab report template with a graph (6–12), all emailed after purchase.
Want a bigger research station? Our best-selling Heirloom Vegetable Seed Science Collection comes with 30 heirloom varieties and about 5,000 non-GMO seeds, including Blue Lake bush beans, Detroit Red beets and Roma tomatoes, plus a curriculum for designing germination trials and comparing results across varieties.
Join the growing community
Every kit purchase includes an invitation to Aardvark's Seed Planting For Little Hands, our private support group for families using our kits. After your order, request to join and we'll add you. Members share progress photos, ask questions and troubleshoot experiments together.
Share your jar-test layers and your sprout graphs. Young scientists from the Ozarks to the Delta, along with growers in West Virginia and Arizona, are running fair tests of their own, and every result helps someone else learn.
Start your own research plots
A century of Arkansas agricultural research started with simple field tests. Your kids can start theirs this week.
